Most actors dread a bad review, but Hannah Waddingham credits the critics for catapulting her to the next phase of her career.
It was 2000, and Waddingham had recently wrapped a musical about artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. The show closed early after a panning in the press, but Waddingham’s turn as Toulouse-Lautrec’s lover, Suzanne Valadon, was singled out for praise. As one British newspaper put it: “She deserves to be in a better musical.”
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Her standout performance led theater impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber to handpick the 26-year-old for a project he was writing with Ben Elton called “The Beautiful Game.” “He said anyone that can have rave reviews in something that receives such bad reviews is the kind of person I want to work with,” Waddingham recalls.
Arriving at Lloyd Webber’s opulent Central London home for a preproduction meeting, Waddingham found the man behind some of theater’s greatest hits sitting at a piano. “He was tinkling around and saying, ‘Well, I’ve had Elaine in this key’ — you know, Elaine Paige — ‘I’ve had Glenn in this key’” — that is, Glenn Close — “‘and I thought we might sit you here,’” she says, miming fingers on a keyboard.
